Council defers North Parramatta McDonald’s redevelopment

McDonald’s has been told to clean up its act and deliver parking before it gets the green light to build a 346-apartment complex in Sydney’s west.

The redevelopment of North Parramatta McDonald’s into a double-storey eatery with 346 apartments has been put on hold after the proposal was attacked for its failure to address crippling parking problems and clean up the “atrocious bloody entrance” to the city.

Developer Stockland has proposed two towers of 31 storeys housing the apartments atop the double-storey fast food restaurant that has been a mainstay at the corner of Church St and Victoria Rd for decades.

A playground and McCafe are planned but the two-lane drive-through service was a point of contention at the Parramatta Council meeting on Monday night when they deferred the matter for another fortnight.

Councillors criticised the plans for failing to recognise the traffic problems already plaguing the site, which draws traffic from schools such as Our Lady of Mercy College, St Patrick’s Primary and Bayanami Public School, and will include the light rail in the future.

Traffic is understood to enter from Victoria Rd and leave from Ross St if the development is approved.

Cr Andrew Wilson called for the drive-through to be scrapped.

“I don’t know how they got the drive-through in the first place,’’ he said and slammed the towers.

“It will be there for over 100 years. There’s going to be 30 storeys there.

“What a waste of a site and what a silly idea.”

Cr Patricia Prociv dismissed the Stockland 2020 traffic study for its inaccuracy and for failing to address extra traffic from residents living in the new complex.

“There’s going to be an extra 346 residential apartments,’’ she said.

“Are they saying that these people don’t generate any more traffic?’’

Cr Bob Dwyer attacked McDonald’s for “minimum parking’’ on offer.

“If we’re going to have minimum parking on that site to appease the applicant, we’re already losing so much parking in our city we should be getting some sort of contribution to the city from this particular McDonald’s who want it their own way,’’ he said.

“I’ve been asking that McDonald’s applicant for three years to clean up their building. It’s the atrocious bloody entrance to our city. They literally just said if we get our DA, planning proposal approved we’ll look at it. Well, I’m not going to be held over a barrel for that. I’ll be voting against that until such time the applicant puts forward something constructive that’s in favour of the city.’’

The double-storey Maccas would include 31 levels of flats.

A McDonald’s spokeswoman said it was disappointed with the council’s decision to defer and it was considering its options.

“The development application addressed all concerns previously raised by council and is in accordance with planning requirements set for the mixed-use site.”

The project contains one, two- and three-bedroom flats and would replace a row of small businesses including a kebab shop, barber and convenience store that have long been abandoned.

Before Monday’s meeting, councillor Steven Issa said:

“We absolutely need to get rid of the ghastly building on the corner that doesn’t represent Parramatta or its aspirations.

“However, we need to work through the implications of drive-through when combined with light rail and other changes.’’

The project has been in the pipeline since 2015 but were withdrawn the following year before resurfacing in 2018.

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